It's been six years since Mindstorms NXT became Lego's best-selling product ever. Now, the global toy giant is ramping up the platform to be more flexible and powerful than ever.

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Gripp3r

LAS VEGAS--At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today, Lego formally unveiled the third generation of its best-selling programmable robotics platform. Known as Mindstorms EV3, the new product will be more powerful than ever, featuring autodetection of sensors and motors, and the ability to program directly on intelligent bricks.

This is Gripp3r, one of 17 robots that the $350 product will include instructions for at launch this summer.

Intelligent brick

Mindstorms EV3 is built around intelligent programmable bricks like this one. Up to four of the bricks can be daisy-chained together, and while most programming will be done on a computer, the bricks allow for simple development without a computer.